User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton & Peter Economy

Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product

User story mapping is a valuable tool for software development, once you understand why and how to use it. 
This insightful book examines how this often misunderstood technique can help your team stay focused on users and their needs without getting lost in the enthusiasm for individual product features.
Author Jeff Patton shows you how changeable story maps enable your team to hold better conversations about the project throughout the development process. 
Your team will learn to come away with a shared understanding of what you’re attempting to build and why.

• Get a high-level view of story mapping, with an exercise to learn key concepts quickly
• Understand how stories really work, and how they come to life in Agile and Lean projects
• Dive into a story’s lifecycle, starting with opportunities and moving deeper into discovery
• Prepare your stories, pay attention while they’re built, and learn from those you convert to working software

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 4.32 out of 5 (164 Ratings, 23 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

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A Little History of The World - E.H. Gombrich

In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited to attempt a history of the world for younger readers.
Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and "Eine kurze Weltgeschichte fur junge Leser" was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in twenty-five languages across the world.
In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb.
In between emerges a colorful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science.
This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind's experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements and an acute witness to its frailties.
The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 4.06 out of 5 (6731 Ratings, 806 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

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Kanban in Action - Marcus Hammarberg & Joakim Sunden

Too much work and too little time? 

If this is daily life for your team, you need kanban, a lean knowledge-management method designed to involve all team members in continuous improvement of your process. Kanban in Action is a practical down-to-earth, no-frills, get-to-know-the-ropes introduction to kanban.
Written by two kanban coaches who have taught the method to dozens of teams, the book covers techniques for planning and forecasting, establishing meaningful metrics, visualizing queues and bottlenecks, and constructing and using a kanban board.
Written for all members of the development team, including leaders, coders, and business stakeholders. 
No experience with kanban is required.

What's Inside 

•     How to focus on work in process and finish faster
•     Examples of successful implementations
•     How team members can make informed decisions

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 4.19 out of 5 (79 Ratings, 20 Reviews)
My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

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The Big Book of Team Building Games - John W. Newstrom & Edward Scannell

Quick, Fun Activities for Building Morale, Communication and Team Spirit 
Did you know that games can be a terrifically effective way to build team spirit, communication, and trust among people who work together day in and day out?

Team-building games and activities are so stimulating and enjoyable that everyone in the department actually looks forward to them! 
Now you can choose from 70 varied and imaginative games and activities that have been specifically designed for the manager who's looking to:

• Raise sagging morale in a department
• Liven up boring staff meetings
• Improve communication
• Promote a culture of harmony and cooperation
• Have fun with your work team

Each of these games is fast, creative, easy-to-lead, and will help you accomplish your team building goals.
Learn valuable tips on how to present games and how to select activities for particular situations. 
Get essential advice on what not to do when leading games, and much more!
 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.in]
 

Goodreads Rating - 2.0 out of 5 (46 Rating, 2 Reviews) 
My Rating:  2 out of 5. 

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Scaling Lean & Agile Development by Craig Larman & Bas Vodde

Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrum 
Increasingly, large product-development organizations are turning to lean thinking, agile principles and practices, and large-scale Scrum to sustainably and quickly deliver value and innovation. 

However, many groups have floundered in their practice-oriented adoptions. Why? 

Because without a deeper understanding of the thinking tools and profound organizational redesign needed, it is as though casting seeds on to an infertile field. 

Now, drawing on their long experience leading and guiding large-scale lean and agile adoptions for large, multisite, and offshore product development, and drawing on the best research for great team-based agile organizations, internationally recognized consultant and best-selling author Craig Larman and former leader of the agile transformation at Nokia Networks Bas Vodde share the key thinking and organizational tools needed to plant the seeds of product development success in a fertile lean and agile enterprise.

Coverage includes  

• Lean thinking and development combined with agile practices and methods
• Systems thinking
• Queuing theory and large-scale development processes
• Moving from single-function and component teams to stable cross-functional cross-component Scrum feature teams with end-to-end responsibility for features
• Organizational redesign to a lean and agile enterprise that delivers value fast
• Large-scale Scrum for multi-hundred-person product groups

In a competitive environment that demands ever-faster cycle times and greater innovation, applied lean thinking and agile principles are becoming an urgent priority.  

Scaling Lean & Agile Development will help leaders create the foundation for their lean enterprise–and deliver on the significant benefits of agility. 
[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 4.02 out of 5 (117Ratings, 13 Reviews) 
My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

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A Mountain In Tibet - Charles Allen

The Search For Mount Kailas And The Sources Of The Great Rivers Of Asia

Throughout the East there runs a legend of a great mountain at the centre of the world, where four rivers have their source. 
Charles Allen traces this legend to Western Tibet where there stands Kailas, worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists alike as the home of their gods and the navel of the world. 
Close by are the sources of four mighty rivers: the sacred Ganges, the Indus, the Sutlej and Tsangpo-Brahmaputra. 
For centuries Kailas remained an enigma to the outside world. 
Then a succession of remarkable men took up the challenge of penetrating the hostile, frozen wastelands beyond the Western Himalayas, culminating in the great age of discovery, the final years of the Victorian era. 
A Mountain in Tibet is an extraordinary story of exploration and high adventure, full of the excitement and colour expected from the author of Plain Tales from the Raj.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.in]

Goodreads Rating - 3.82 out of 5 (49 Ratings, 5 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

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Essential Scrum - Kenneth S. Rubin

A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process 

A Single-Source, Comprehensive Guide to Scrum for All Team Members, Managers, and Executives. 

If you want to use Scrum to develop innovative products and services that delight your customers, Essential Scrum is the complete, single-source reference you’ve been searching for.

Leading Scrum coach and trainer Kenny Rubin illuminates the values, principles, and practices of Scrum, and describes flexible, proven approaches that can help you implement it far more effectively.

Whether you are new to Scrum or years into your use, this book will introduce, clarify, and deepen your Scrum knowledge at the team, product, and portfolio levels.

 Drawing from Rubin’s experience helping hundreds of organizations succeed with Scrum, this book provides easy-to-digest descriptions enhanced by more than two hundred illustrations based on an entirely new visual icon language for describing Scrum’s roles, artifacts, and activities.

Essential Scrum  will provide every team member, manager, and executive with a common understanding of Scrum, a shared vocabulary they can use in applying it, and practical knowledge for deriving maximum value from it.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 4.11 out of 5 (317Ratings, 24 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

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(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.)